City-based Accel Animation Studio (AAS) would join hands with Canadian production house Kahani World to make a full-length animated feature film.
"We are working on signing an MoU for this purpose and expect to release the movie in about 30 months," N R Panicker, Chairman of Accel Transmatic Ltd, the parent company of AAS, said.
The movie, targeted at a global audience, will have a European Director, he said.
"We have also done visual effects for an upcoming Bollywood movie 'Friends Forever'," he said.
The Ashmit Patel starrer is slated for release this August, the firm's Chief Technology Officer S Muralidhar said.
This would be the first time that an Indian feature film would have about 40 minutes of animated characters sharing screen space with real actors.
The company has also bagged four more projects from film company 'Celluloid Dreams'.
"Yet another project called 'Joker', which will be formally announced by them, will have about 45-50 minutes of animated characters on screen," the CTO added.
Accel had recently announced the setting up of a motion capture studio at Thiruvananthapuram, in the KINFRA TV and Film Park.
Panicker said the studio being set up at a cost of Rs four crore, will be operational by August.
"It will help achieve realistic animation movement apart from saving a lot of time and improving quality," Muralidhar said.
He said studio will run as a service-based business, with Accel permitting other companies to rent the facility.
The company will hire actors based on the needs of the projects at the motion capture studio. "We will be only technical surpervisors for it," he added.
"Already we have had three to four enquiries for the motion capture facility," he said.
Accel currently has a three year agreement with Kahani World for various projects. The two are rolling out a 54 episode animation series-'Raju The Autorickshaw' for the international audience, especially Direct-to-Home DVD market.
The company is also working on "Warrior of Chaos" animation series for Kahani World.
Animated Thirukkural
Recently, Accel released a 13-hour animated short story series based on "Thirukkural", one of the most acclaimed Tamil literary works.
Accel has set aside Rs 12 crore for animation related activity development this year of which Rs four crore has been invested in the motion capture studio, he said.
The balance would be spent on expanding existing animation studios in Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram.
Also, animation academies would be set up in the two cities at an investment of Rs one crore each.
Accel would be funding the ventures through borrowings and internal accruals, he added.
